wordpresslogiccustom-fields

Wordpress - meta_query - Possible to use multiple or nested meta_query arguments?


I am using wordpress' meta_query to try to build a basic events system.

Each event has a number of meta keys/values. For example:

Start Date
End Date
Ongoing (Yes/No)

I want to separate events that are Ongoing (Ongoing = Yes) and Not Ongoing (Ongoing = No).

Then within my Ongoing events, I want to separate events that are:

  1. Starting within two weeks OR Ending within two weeks
  2. Already started AND ending beyond two weeks

My problem lies within case 1 which is, in essence:

(Start Date <= Two Weeks OR End Date <= Two Weeks) AND Ongoing == YES

Using WP_Query, I have the following:

$ongoingSoon = array(
        'category_name' => 'event',
        'meta_key' => 'End Date',
        'orderby' => 'meta_value',
        'order' => 'ASC',
        'meta_query' => array(
            'relation' => 'AND',
            array(
                'key' => 'Start Date',
                'value' => $today,
                'compare' => '>='
            ),
            array(
                'key' => 'End Date',
                'value' => $nexttwoweeks,
                'compare' => '<='
            ),
            array(
                'key' => 'Ongoing',
                'value' => 'Yes'
            )
        )
    );

Which only returns Ongoing events that Start AND ALSO End within the next two weeks. If I change the relation to OR, then it shows events that are not ongoing as well. Is there a way to achieve what I need?


Solution

  • As meta_query is currently written, I'm 99% sure it's impossible to do this.

    What you can do to get around that is to create a (probably private) custom taxonomy for Ongoing that acts like a boolean and only ever uses one term ('yes' or '1' or whatever). Your WP_Query would then be changed to look like this:

    $ongoingSoon = array(
        'category_name' => 'event',
        'meta_key' => 'End Date',
        'orderby' => 'meta_value',
        'order' => 'ASC',
        'meta_query' => array(
            'relation' => 'OR',
            array(
                'key' => 'Start Date',
                'value' => $today,
                'compare' => '>='
            ),
            array(
                'key' => 'End Date',
                'value' => $nexttwoweeks,
                'compare' => '<='
            )
        ),
        'tax_query' => array(
            array(
                'taxonomy' => 'ongoing',
                'field' => 'slug',
                'terms' => 'yes'
            )
        )
    );